A Yorkshire farmer has created the world’s largest spot the difference competition as a tribute to Harry Potter.

Tom Pearcy has carefully cut out two portraits of the boy wizard in his crop of maize plants at his field near York. With some subtle differences between the two images it creates the world’s largest spot the difference competition. At over 50m in diameter each head is also believed to be the largest image of Daniel Radcliffe ever created.

The images have been painstakingly carved out of over one million living maize plants. The 10km of pathways form an intricate maze for visitors to explore. The York Maze is the largest maize maze in Europe and one of the largest in the world.

Mr Pearcy said: “I’m a big fan of Harry Potter and the release of the final film this summer marks the end of an era. I wanted to do something imaginative to say farewell to Harry, so creating the biggest image of him ever made and making it a spot the difference competition seemed like an interesting way to do that.”…

[continues in the Yorkshire Post]

Scientists in the UK have demonstrated a flexible film that represents a big step toward the “invisibility cloak” made famous by Harry Potter.

The film contains tiny structures that together form a “metamaterial”, which can, among other tricks, manipulate light to render objects invisible. Flexible metamaterials have been made before, but only work for light of a colour far beyond that which we see.

Physicists have hailed the approach a “huge step forward”. The bendy approach for visible light is reported in the New Journal of Physics.

Metamaterials work by interrupting and channelling the flow of light at a fundamental level; in a sense they can be seen as bouncing light waves around in a prescribed fashion to achieve a particular result.

However, the laws of optics have it that light waves can only be manipulated in this way by structures that are about as large as the waves’ length.

Continues at BBC News …

Draco Malfoy has leapt into the drugs storm surrounding Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe defending his on-screen arch-enemy.

Actor Tom Felton, who plays the evil wizard in the movies spoke out about the rumours that co-star Radcliffe used cannabis.

Radcliffe was allegedly pictured inhaling from a rolled up cigarette at a party earlier this month.

A fellow reveller at the gathering said that he overheard the 20-year-old actor declare “I love weed” at a private house party in North London.

But Felton came to the defence of his wizard friend when he appeared at an NEC exhibition in Birmingham.

“Obviously Daniel and Emma Watson are under more pressure to keep a squeaky-clean image. When the media fabricates stories I don’t think it’s really fair on those poor guys.

Think Progress

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civil award, and is given to individuals who have contributed to: 1) the security or national interests of the United States, 2) world peace, or 3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

In his new book, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer reveals how politicized the revered Presidential Medal of Freedom became during the Bush administration.

Latimer writes that administration officials objected to giving author J.K. Rowling the Presidential Medal of Freedom because her writing “encouraged witchcraft” (p. 201):

This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged withcraft.

Latimer also writes that when he suggested bestowing the honor upon Ted Kennedy, who had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor, fellow speechwriter Marc Thiessen objected because Kennedy “was a liberal” (p. 201).

When Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor, I suggested that the president might at least consider awarding Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Marc objected wtih the genteel diplomacy he was known for. “That’s crazy!” he thundered. Kennedy was a liberal, he noted (of which I was well aware).

The Bush administration was notorious for awarding the medal to its staunchest Iraq war allies. Bush’s final three recipients of the Medal of Freedom were two supporters of his war in Iraq — former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard — and leading human rights violator and Bush foreign policy ally Alvaro Uribe. Other recipients included a whole lineup of figures heavily involved in the Iraq war, including Paul Bremer and George Tenet.